Now is the time to focus on WINNING!!! A big part of that is playing smart tactics.

Whenever possible, scout out your upcoming opponents. This means three things: watching them play at the tournament; watching them on video; and asking others about that player.

If you watch them in the tournament or on video, try to watch from the far side, as if you were receiving their serve. That way you can see their serves in advance as if you were receiving them. By the time you play them, it’s almost as if you had already practiced against their serves. You not only should be more comfortable against those serves, but you should now know what receives will give that player the most trouble.

Whether it’s before the match starts or during the match, you need to figure out what tactics to use. That means balancing tactics that set up your game against tactics that stop their game. But some think too much about this and are unable to play free. Instead, keep it simple. How do you do that? I’ll give you what may be my most famous quote, the words that open my book, Table Tennis Tactics for Thinkers:

“Tactics isn’t about finding complex strategies to defeat an opponent. Tactics is about sifting through all the zillions of possible tactics and finding a few simple ones that work.”

And that is your tactical goal in a match. Don’t get too caught up in finding the “perfect” tactic – find a few that work. Experiment to test them out until you find the right tactics to win.

Here’s my tip, Finding Simple Tactics That Work.